International conference on consumer redressblogs.sun.ac.za/law/files/2018/01/Program_Final.pdf ·...
Transcript of International conference on consumer redressblogs.sun.ac.za/law/files/2018/01/Program_Final.pdf ·...
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International conference on consumer redress
A collaborative initiative between the Faculties of Law at Stellenbosch University
and KU Leuven
Dates: 9 and 10 April 2018
Venue: Attie van Wyk Auditorium, Faculty of Theology, 171 Dorp Street,
Stellenbosch
Background: The outset of the conference is the emerging consumer market in
Africa and the rise of consumer disputes. The conference will be aimed at mapping
the various consumer redress techniques that are being used in different
jurisdictions (including class actions and alternative dispute resolution methods) in
order to consider which techniques, if any, would be the most suitable for African
use. Conversely, other jurisdictions might be able to learn something from the
African experience too. The conference will delve into this issue, describe what the
problems are and offer possible solutions.
DAY 1
09:00 – 09:30 Registration
09:30 – 09:45 Welcome
Dr Theo Broodryk and Prof Dr Stefaan Voet
09:45 – 10:15 Opening Plenary
Judge Siraj Desai, Judge of the Western Cape Division of the
High Court of South Africa
10:15 – 10:45 Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed, Head of the National
Consumer Commission (Taking consumer protection to the
next level: The South Africa approach to consumer redress)
10:45 – 11:15 Refreshments and comfort break
11:15 – 11:45 Prof B Dumisa, Tribunal Member of the National Consumer
Tribunal (An Assessment of The Impact Of the National Credit
Act On The Reduction of Over-Indebtedness In South Africa:
Rehabilitation Or Temporary Shelter)
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11:45 – 12:15 General discussion
12:15 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:00 Dr Theo Broodryk, Stellenbosch University (Class Actions and
ADR in South Africa: Dynamism a Reason for Optimism?)
14:00 – 14:30 Prof Dr Stefaan Voet, KU Leuven (Consumer Redress in Europe:
A Story about the Three Musketeers)
14:30 – 15:00 Refreshments and comfort break
15:00 – 15:30 Eline Verhage, Leiden University (Consumer Dispute Resolution
in Europe: A Quest for the Holy Grail?)
15:30 – 16:00 Dr Shahla Ali, University of Hong Kong (Designing Consumer
Financial ADR Mechanisms: Lessons from Hong Kong in a
Global Perspective)
16:00 – 16:30 General discussion
16:30 – 16:45 Day 1 closing comments
Dr Theo Broodryk and Prof Dr Stefaan Voet
DAY 2
09:00 – 09:15 Welcome
Dr Theo Broodryk and Prof Dr Stefaan Voet
09:15 – 09:45 Prof Linda S Mullenix, University of Texas (Regulatory and
Judicial Consumer Protection in the United States)
09:45 – 10:15 Prof Manuel Gómez, Florida International University (All Bark and
No Bite?: Contemporary Consumer Redress in Latin America)
10:15 – 10:45 Prof Dr Alan Uzelac, Zagreb University (Consumer ADR in South-
East Europe: A Victory of Generalists, a Defeat of Effectiveness)
10:45 – 11:15 Refreshments and comfort break
11:15 – 12:30 Panel Discussion
Moderator: Prof Dr Stefaan Voet
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Panellists:
1. Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed, Head of the National
Consumer Commission
2. Dr Theo Broodryk, Stellenbosch University
3. Prof Linda S Mullenix, University of Texas
4. Prof Manuel Gómez, Florida International University
5. Prof Dr Alan Uzelac, Zagreb University
12:30 – 13:00 General discussion and closing reflections (Dr Theo Broodryk and
Prof Dr Stefaan Voet)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
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Speakers
Dr Shahla Ali
Shahla Ali's research and practice centers on questions of governance, development
and the resolution of cross-border disputes in the Asia Pacific region. She is as an
Associate Professor and Associate Dean (International) and Deputy Director of the
LLM in Arbitration and Dispute Resolution in the Faculty of Law at the University of
Hong Kong. Shahla is the author of Governing Disasters: Engaging Local Populations
in Humanitarian Relief (CUP, 2016); Consumer Financial Dispute Resolution in a
Comparative Context (CUP, 2013) and Resolving Disputes in the Asia Pacific Region
(Routledge, 2010) and writes for law journals in the area of comparative ADR. She
has consulted with USAID, IFC/World Bank and the United Nations on issues
pertaining to access to justice, peace process negotiation training and land use conflict
resolution. She serves as a bilingual arbitrator (English/Chinese) with CIETAC, HKIAC
(ADNDRC), SIAC and is a member of the IBA Drafting Committee for Investor-State
Mediation Rules, the DOJ Mediation Regulatory Framework Sub-Committee, the UN
Mediation Roster and the FDRC Appointments Committee.
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Dr Theo Broodryk
Theo Broodryk is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Stellenbosch University Law
Clinic. He completed his postgraduate LLB-degree at the Faculty in 2008. He
commenced his articles of clerkship at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs Inc, the largest
firm in Africa at the time, in 2009 where he also practised as an attorney until
September 2012. Theo commenced employment with the Faculty in October 2012. He
is responsible for lecturing Civil Procedure and Legal Skills and assists in coordinating
the Faculty’s writing project. In 2015, Theo received both the Rector’s Award for
outstanding work performance and the MJ & HB Thom Research Funding Award. In
2016, the University formally recognised him as part of a group of 13 young
researchers at the University who made the biggest contribution to the Department of
Higher Education and Training accredited scientific publications (2014 output year). In
2016, he attended Stanford Law School at Stanford University in the United States as
a Visiting Scholar to conduct research on class action litigation. Theo obtained his
Legum Doctor (LLD) degree in the field of class actions, with the title of his dissertation
being “Developing a Structure for the Adjudication of Class Actions in South Africa”.
For publications and further info see: http://blogs.sun.ac.za/law/staff/regskliniek-law-
clinic/
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Judge Siraj Desai
Credit: news24.com
Judge Siraj Desai has been a judge at the Western Cape High Court for more than 20
years and holds a BA and LLB from the University of Durban-Westville, now called the
University of KwaZulu-Natal. During his time as a judge, he has presided over
numerous noteworthy and widely published cases which include the Najwa Petersen
murder trial, the emoluments attachment orders litigation and, more recently, the trial
of triple murder accused Henri van Breda. With his history as an activist, Judge Desai
has expressed that his most significant outcome up to date has been the emoluments
attachment order litigation as it led to a vindication of the rights of the poor.
Prof B Dumisa
Prof Bonke Dumisa is an Advocate of the High Courts of South and Lesotho; and a
former Professor of Management at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has seven
university degrees, obtained from seven universities spread across four countries in
three continents:
• Doctor of Business Administration (DBA): University of Durban-Westville (now
part of the merged University of KwaZulu-Natal) in 1998.
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• Master of Laws (LLM): University of KwaZulu-Natal, in 2013.
• Master of Science (MSc): London School of Economics (LSE), University of
London, United Kingdom, in 1993.
• Master of Business Administration (MBA): Bentley University, Waltham,
Massachusetts, United States of Africa, in 1988.
• Honours Bachelor of Commerce (BCom(Hons)): University of South Africa, in
1987.
• Bachelor of Laws (LLB): University of Zululand, in 2000.
• Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting): National University of Lesotho, in 1982.
He has extensive experience on Consumer matters which extends across four
decades:
• He did many Consumer courses / modules at both undergraduate and post-
graduate levels.
• He taught Consumer courses / modules at both undergraduate and post-
graduate levels.
• He has continuously served on Consumer structures within the national
Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) for the past 18 years since 2000.
This includes being the Member and Deputy Chairperson of the Consumer
Affairs Committee (CAFCOM) in 2000- 2008; Tribunal Member, Deputy
Chairperson, and Acting Executive Chairperson of the National Consumer
Tribunal (NCT) from 2006 – 2022. He also served on the Consumer Advisory
Panel of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).
• He adjudicates on various consumer-related matters including at the National
Consumer Tribunal (NCT), Community Schemes Ombuds Services (CSOS),
Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), Broadcasting Complaints Commission of
South Africa (BCCSA), Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA),
KZN Planning and Development Appeals Committee (KZNPDA), Board of the
KZN Liquor Authority (KZNLQA), KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board where he was
the Chairperson, Professional Board of Radiography and Clinical Technology
at the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), KwaZulu-Natal
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Rental Housing Tribunal, and even at the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Planning
Commission where he is the Chairperson.
• He has attended various national and international conferences and did
research visits on Consumers matters in South Africa and abroad including the
USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Brazil.
Prof Manuel Gómez
Manuel A. Gómez is an Associate Professor of Law and the Associate Dean of
International and Graduate Studies at Florida International University (FIU). He
specializes in international arbitration, comparative complex litigation, and
international law with focus on Latin America. He also leads the College of Law’s
Global Legal Studies Initiative, is an academic board member of the Miami
International Arbitration Society (MIAS), member of the Academic Council of the
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA), co-leader of the Latin America Group of
the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center (SVAMC), and member of the
Faculty Advisory Board of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center
at FIU. Professor Gómez is also the Editor-in-Chief of the World Arbitration and
Mediation Review (WAMR). He has taught and lectured extensively through the
Americas, Asia, and Europe. He has published works on topics related to transnational
litigation, comparative class actions, and consumer protection in Latin America; and
his scholarship has earned wide recognition and accolades. Professor Gómez has
extensive litigation experience in Latin America, frequently serves as expert in
international arbitration proceedings, and in court proceedings involving foreign parties
in the U.S. Professor Gómez holds masters and doctoral degrees from Stanford
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University School of Law, and a law degree (cum laude) and a specialization in
procedural law from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Venezuela).
Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed
Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed is the head of the National Consumer Commission
in South Africa. He was the first Deputy Commissioner of the NCC when it was
established in 2011 and prior to that worked as Chief Director responsible for the
former Office of Consumer Protection at the Department of Trade and Industry (the
dti).
He is an admitted attorney for 30 years, with vast experience in Human Rights and
Public Interest Law.
Commissioner Mohamed has served as board member and trustee of several boards,
including the interim Estate Agency Affairs Board, the interim National Credit
Regulator Board, and the Special Pensions Board. He has also held directorships at
the dti as well as the former Foodworld Group of Companies.
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Prof Linda S Mullenix
Linda S. Mullenix holds the Rita and Morris Atlas Chair in Advocacy at the University
of Texas School of Law. She earned M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in political science
from Columbia University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from the
City College of New York. She received her law degree from Georgetown University
Law Center and practiced appellate litigation in Washington, D.C. She has been a
college and law professor since 1974.
Professor Mullenix has served as a U.S. Supreme Court Fellow; a scholar-in-
residence at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center in
Italy; and held the Fulbright Senior Distinguished Chair in Law, in Trento, Italy. She is
an elected Life Member of the American Law Institute and an elected Life Fellow of
the Texas Bar Foundation. She also is an elected Fellow of the American Bar
Foundation, and the International Association of Procedural Law.
Professor Mullenix teaches federal civil procedure, mass tort litigation, and class
action litigation. She also has taught complex litigation, federal courts, conflict of laws,
professional responsibility, and civil justice reform. She has been a visiting professor
at Oxford University, the University of Trento (Italy), Harvard, Michigan, and Southern
Methodist law schools; held the Reuschlein Distinguished Visiting Chair (Villanova);
and served as the Katherine Ryan Distinguished Professor at the Institute on World
Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria.
Professor Mullenix is the author or co-author of twenty-two books including MASS
TORT LITIGATION (3d ed. 2017); LEADING CASES IN CIVIL PROCEDURE (3d ed.
2017); UNDERSTANDING FEDERAL COURTS (2d ed. 2015); CIVIL PROCEDURE
BLACKLETTER SERIES (2d ed. 2014); FEDERAL COURTS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY (3d ed. 2007); STATE CLASS ACTION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE
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(2000); RESTATEMENT THIRD, THE LAW GOVERNING LAWYERS (2000);
and MOORE'S FEDERAL PRACTICE.
For more than thirty years she has been a contributor to Preview of Supreme Court
Cases and a regular columnist for the National Law Journal. She served as Associate
Reporter for the ALI Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, a consultative
member of the ALI Transnational Rules of Civil Procedure and the ALI Complex
Litigation Project. Professor Mullenix has written dozens of articles published in The
Chicago Legal Forum, Cornell Law Review, Georgetown University Law Journal,
Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Stanford Law
Review, The Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation, University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, Northwestern Law Review, Texas Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review,
and numerous other journals.
Professor Mullenix has served the profession as Reporter for an ABA Task Force on
Class Actions; Reporter for the Southern District of Texas, Civil Justice Reform Act;
Reporter for the National Conference of Federal-State Judicial Relationships; Advisor,
Texas Class Action Rules Subcommittee; and Advisor, National Center for State
Courts, Study on Civil Discovery. She has delivered lectures relating to complex
litigation in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, and
the U.K.
Courts throughout the United States have cited Professor Mullenix’s articles on
procedure and complex litigation. She has appeared as a radio commentator on
National Public Radio and been quoted in The New York Times, the Wall Street
Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the National Law Journal, CNNOpinion.com, and the
Guardian (U.K.), among other media publications.
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Prof Dr Alan Uzelac
Alan Uzelac is Professor of Law and Head of Department for Civil Procedure at the
Zagreb University, where he teaches Civil Procedure, Arbitration, ADR, Organization
of Judiciary, and Protection of Human Rights in Europe. He holds degrees in law
(LL.B., LL.M., LL.D.) and social sciences (M.A. (phil.), M.A. (literature)) from Zagreb
University. He was visiting researcher and scholar at a number of universities,
including Harvard Law School (Fulbright grant), and universities of Vienna (Austria),
Maastricht (the Netherlands), Oslo and Bergen (Norway), Kazan and Yekaterinburg
(Russia), Uppsala (Sweden) and Milano and Pavia (Italy). As an active member of the
International Association of Procedural Law and the German Association for
International Procedural Law, he serves on the chief advisory bodies of both
organizations (Council, Rat). Since mid-90s, Dr. Uzelac was engaged as national
delegate of Croatia in the work of UNCITRAL Working Group for Arbitration and
Conciliation were he participated in drafting of the several international instruments in
the field of alternative dispute resolution. He was involved in various activities of the
European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe,
where he held different functions (inter alia: Bureau member from 2003-2006,
President of the Task Force on Timeframes of Proceedings – TF-DEL 2005-2006). His
professional experience includes work in various Croatian courts, Croatian State Bar
Exam, and internship at the Secretariat of the ICC International Court of Arbitration in
Paris. Over a period of ten years, Professor Uzelac was Secretary General of the
Permanent Arbitration Court at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, where he was
engaged in administering more than 350 international and domestic arbitration cases.
During that time, Dr. Uzelac was a co-founder of the Croatian Arbitration Days and the
founding co-editor of the Croatian Arbitration Yearbook. He is a member of panels of
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a number of arbitration institutions, and occasionally acts as arbitrator in international
arbitration cases, both administered and ad hoc. Throughout his career, he was often
engaged as expert in various legislative projects, which include significant contribution
to the drafting of the Croatian Law on Arbitration, Mediation Act, Law on Courts, Law
on State Judicial Council, Legal Aid Act, Rules for Arbitral Dispute Resolution
Regarding Internet Domain Names in .hr domain, and various other laws and
regulations. In 2011-2015 period, Professor Uzelac was member of the highest body
for judicial appointments and discipline, the State Judicial Council. As an international
expert he worked in the region and Europe, assisting legal reforms and legal
collaboration in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Russia and
Kosovo.
For publications and further info see http://alanuzelac.from.hr.
Eline Verhage
Eline Verhage is PhD Fellow and Junior Lecturer in Civil Procedural Law at Leiden
University and visiting scholar at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of
Oxford. Her PhD research focuses on the institutional and procedural implications of
Directive 2013/11/EU on Consumer ADR and the Regulation no. 524/2013 on
Consumer ODR for the Dutch Consumer Dispute Resolution (CDR) landscape.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/eline-verhage/publications#tab-1
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Prof Dr Stefaan Voet
Stefaan Voet is a professor of law at the University of Leuven and a host professor at
the University of Hasselt in Belgium. Before that he was an assistant professor at
Ghent University. Stefaan teaches national, European and international civil
procedure. His main research interests are civil procedure, complex litigation, ADR,
ODR, dispute resolution design and litigation costs. Stefaan is also a Programme
Affiliate of the Swiss Re/CMS Research Programme on Civil Justice Systems at the
Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford and a prominent member
of the Class Actions Exchange Network spearheaded by leading scholars from
Stanford, Oxford and Tilburg. Stefaan wrote his PhD thesis about complex litigation in
Belgium, for which he received in 2014 the Triannual Price of Civil Procedure awarded
by the vzw Algemene Modellenverzameling voor de Rechtspraktijk. He was a member
of different governmental working groups on class actions and mass disasters.
Stefaan regularly speaks at national, European and international conferences. He was
a visiting scholar at the Law Center University of Houston (2009) and Stanford Law
School (2014). He was a visiting lecturer/professor at the Law Center University of
Houston, SMU Dedman School of Law, College of Law University of Tennessee,
Syracuse University College of Law, Peking Law School, the University of Pretoria,
the University of Pavia and the EU-China School of Law in Beijing. He was the 2016-
2017 TPR (Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht) Chair Holder at the University of Utrecht in
the Netherlands. Since 2017, he is the chairman of the supervisory board of the
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Belgian Ombudsman for Retail. Stefaan is also a substitute justice of the peace in
Bruges and a freelance opera critic.
For publications and further info see
https://www.law.kuleuven.be/pub/en/staff/00103885
This work is based on the research supported by the South African National Research Foundation